The S&W M&P problem thread

[HK45]

They aren't as bulletproof as 9mm Glocks, but few machines on earth actually are.

I used to use an M&P .45 for bowling pins and steel. I'm a dry fire maniac and broke one striker after another. I switched to a Glock 21FS for steel because all I have to do is a minor amount of trigger work and Warren sights and I'm good to go. M&P .45 I need all the Apex parts, new sights, and still be concerned about breaking something. I have had Glock 21's for years and never had any issues of any kind. I would like to get another M&P .45 because I have never had any .45 that i could shoot as quickly and accurately but this thread is giving me pause. I was under the impression most of the issues had been worked out. Now I'm not so sure. If I wanted to mess around with a pistol I would go back to 1911's.

[John_Wayne777]

You have to remember the intention of the thread...to document some problems seen with what is becoming a very popular handgun. The most serious systemic problem the M&P has are:

1. Strikers breaking due to dryfire

2. Potential FTX issues on the 9mm guns with brands of ammo that have smaller than usual case rims. (WWB, prominently)

Now you have experienced problem number 1....but were you using snap caps?

There seems to be the idea floating around out there that a gun should be able to sustain a lifetime of 200 dryfires a day without any problems...and that's just not true of practically any handgun on the market. In a class with Ken Hackathorn last October we spent probably 20 minutes talking about dryfire and the number of problems it causes. Ken even listed a number of details you can find on different pistols (like the recessed firing pin hole you can find on 1911's and Beretta 92's as well as other guns) to try and deal with problems resulting from dryfire. In various threads on M4C we have people who worked major LE and military contracts for gun companies who have reported the specific ways that dryfire tended to break guns from Beretta, the pre-kimber management Sig-Sauer, etc.

S&W has introduced new strikers that handle larger amounts of dryfire. The latest generation has been tested to some obscenely high number of dryfire cycles without breakage. It's also important to note that I've yet to see any credible evidence of an M&P striker that broke under live fire...meaning that it's not likely to break on you while you're actually sending rounds downrange at the range, at the match, or in the gunfight.

I view the striker thing as fairly minor because I've broken half a dozen firearms with dryfire by this point. Enough dryfire will break any gun. Glocks seem to tolerate dryfire better than most other weapons on the market, but I've seen Glocks with cracked breech-faces and even a Glock where a cookie-cutter hole was punched out of the breechface. Do enough dryfire and you can even break a Glock. The simple answer here for the guy who dryfires a lot is something I've said many times: Snapcaps are cheap insurance. If you want to be sure your guns work...no matter what type of weapon it is...use a good snapcap like the AZoom. Now the "cheap insurance" part of that isn't really mine...It's been said before by a number of dudes much smarter than me, including some M4C SME's/IPs.

Now I've experienced issue number 2...but in exactly two instances out of around 17,000 9mm rounds downrange in 9mm M&Ps. The two instances happened on different guns but with the same ammo...Winchester White Box. I've never had so much as a hiccup from any other type of ammo. Given that we know the root cause of the problem and that it's well documented...and that I've not seen similar reports with any duty ammo...it's a fairly minor issue.

The failures to reset have largely been the result of screwing around with the fire control mechanism in some way. The way the trigger bar functions on the M&P leaves it more vulnerable to reset issues than a Glock, but the overwhelming majority of reset issues I know about have happened on guns where there was some alteration to the original factory setup that was made chasing more desirable trigger characteristics...which really aren't necessary.

I've tried just about every trigger arrangement you can get on an M&P from a full-on custom job done by Dan Burwell to the drop-in Apex kit...but I could shoot my bone stock guns every bit as well as those with the customized trigger. I sometimes did the yuk face because of an indistinct reset, but on the target and on the clock there wasn't really any significant difference in performance. The nicer trigger characteristics are nice...no question. They are simply not necessary.

If we were to document all the problems Glock has had over the years it would be a long thread. (With a lot of hurt feelings) Even the 9mm Glocks, the guns that in general stand a level above everybody else in the reliability and durability department, have had some serious issues. At one point the NYPD actually put out a request for bid for new guns because of the famous phase III malfunctions they were seeing with their G19s.

The key here is to take what's been presented in this thread in context. There are people here like Beat_Trash, NCPatrolAR, JFreuler and others who work in departments where literally thousands of M&P's are on the street performing as expected. The M&P is currently a candidate in pistol trials being conducted by some large agencies and there doesn't seem to be reports of unsatisfactory performance trickling out about them like there are for some other pistols. I've never heard the phrase "they ran out of incident reports" used in conjunction with the M&P.

If you walk into a gunstore and see an M&P beside a G17 and you wonder which is going to be most likely to run flawlessly out of the box and let you do anything you can conceive of to it without much complaint, the answer will be the G17...but by how great a margin? Given what info we have about the M&P's performance in police issue numbers the margin probably wouldn't be as large as you might think.

[HK45]

Well. Ok. Good information as usual. No, I don't use snap caps. Never have. I'm in a gun buying mood so think I'll go pick up an M&P 45 today and order some Warrens. Shoot it for a couple months and go from there. My wife is driving me crazy anyway with painters and contractors all over the house and I need to go shoot something to clear my head.

[Littlelebowski]

Well. Ok. Good information as usual. No, I don't use snap caps. Never have. I'm in a gun buying mood so think I'll go pick up an M&P 45 today and order some Warrens. Shoot it for a couple months and go from there. My wife is driving me crazy anyway with painters and contractors all over the house and I need to go shoot something to clear my head.

Send those G17s over so they don't rust from lack of use

[DocGKR]

JW777--Superb comments and exactly in concordance with what we have seen.

[HK45]

Send those G17s over so they don't rust from lack of use

Don't worry. I'm wearing them out getting ready for Todd Greens class plus Gunsite and Thunder Ranch this year. I went out to probably buy an M&P .45 this morning but decided not to after molesting one. Probably will try a Gen 4 22 for steel and pins. Just used to using a .45 for that.

[Littlelebowski]

Got a buddy with the Gen4 G22 - 2 counting my buddy gotm4. Both are happy with them.

[RogerinTPA]

Knocked off my right side ambi slide release on my M&P9, mid stream into the VTAC 1.5 pistol course (Lakeland, FL, which is mucho excellent by the way) this weekend during the many many shooting drills. Which turned into a minor inconvenience when doing support side only shooting and reloading, without the assistance of the strong hand. Not surprised though, when I used a different holster than the one I'm used to and given the overwhelming majority of the drills start from the holster.

[C4IGrant]

JW777, good post and am sure glad I didn't say the exact same thing.



C4

[JHC]

. The M&P is currently a candidate in pistol trials being conducted by some large agencies and there doesn't seem to be reports of unsatisfactory performance trickling out about them like there are for some other pistols.

JW777 - is it your sense that most of these LE pistols are .40s? And does the .40 exhibit the fewest issues? I'm getting that impression.